The Heath Family

     I never saw so many attractive wild pinxter azalea flowers in full bloom as I did on May 5, 2017 in the wooded Welsh Mountains of eastern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Some of the two to eight foot tall, but spindly, pinxter shrubs had lovely, pale-pink blossoms while others had beautiful, deeper-pink blooms.  A few carpenter bees were visiting the pinxter blossoms to sip nectar while I was there.  Seeing those pinxter blossoms made me think of other shrubs in the heath family I have seen over many years.
     Pinxter azaleas are deciduous shrubs in oak woodlands in the eastern united States, including woods in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They flourish best in rich, moist soil in partial shade and sun, but can tolerate drier, rocky or sandy soil as well. 
      Pinxters produce funnel-shaped flowers that are showy and slightly fragrant from mid-April, when the trees are still bare of foliage, into early May.  Each pretty blossom has five long, curved stamens that protrude decoratively about an inch beyond the flower petals.  Bees, butterflies, and rubythroated hummingbirds here in the east, sip nectar from pinxter blooms, making them more interesting to experience.
     Growing up to eight feet or more in Pennsylvania, mountain laurels are heath shrubs with leaves on them through the year, adding a welcome touch of green to gray, deciduous woods in winter.  Mountain laurels also have gnarled limbs that give them a picturesque, rustic appearance.  These handsome shrubs bloom late in May into early June, and their attractive flowers are on top of their twisted branches.  Their flower buds, which are ribbed and resemble dabs of decorative icing on top of a cake, are pink.  But their flower petals, when fully open are mostly white, with just a suggestion of pink, and several cinnamon-colored dots around the inside rim of each blossom. 
     People who build homes in the woods realize the beauties of these shrubs and allow them to grow and bloom on the lawns those folks created in the woods.  This is a common heath in many woods in southeastern Pennsylvania.   
     Sheep laurels also have evergreen foliage, but are smaller than mountain laurels (up to three feet high) and grow their striking, deep-pink blooms of the year below the new growth of leaves on top of the shrubs.  Their leaves are narrow and drooping and their blossoms are shaped like those on mountain laurels.  This heath member flourishes in the north and down the Appalachian Mountains to Georgia.  I have seen sheep laurel blooming in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania during June.
     Great rhododendron, which is the largest heath in the eastern United Sates, forms large, almost pure, clumps of itself in shaded ravines and north-facing slopes where the average temperatures are cooler.  This heath has deep-green, thick, evergreen leaves, which another bit of green to gray, winter woods.  And this species has lovely, white flower petals on its many blossoms by early July.  
     White-tailed deer, black bears and other kinds of wildlife hide out and rest in the dense, evergreen stands of great rhododendron that block wind and catch snow on its broad leaves.  And a few kinds of woodland birds, including hooded warblers, nest in rhododendrons.
     Catawba rhododendron is spotty in distribution in the southeastern United States.  Colonies of this heath occur mostly in the deciduous woods of the mountains in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia.  Standing up to six feet tall, this kind of rhododendron blooms in May and its flower colors vary from light-pink to deep-pink to almost a purple hue.  Great patches of this type of rhododendron blooming in May make Roan Mountain, Tennessee famous.  
    All these members of the heath family, and others, in America have beautiful, showy blossoms in forest understories in spring or summer, depending on the species.  Those lovely blooms help make the woodlands the more inviting during the warmer seasons.  And species with evergreen foliage add a touch of green to the gray, dormant deciduous woods of winter.